BEX IV Update
From Superintendent Banda today:
Oct. 9, 2012
Oct. 9, 2012
Dear Seattle Public Schools families, staff and community:
As you all know, Seattle Public Schools is growing. We may have 50,000 students by the end of this school year.
Today we are writing to update you on our enrollment growth challenges. We have two levies up for renewal in February 2013 – our Operations Levy and our Building Excellence (BEX IV) IV Capital Levy.
Our BEX IV levy will include a list of recommended projects for 2014-2021, which we are presenting to the School Board at a work session 5:45-7:15 p.m., Oct. 10 at the John Stanford Center. A final vote by the Board is expected in November.
Below is a summary of currently proposed projects under consideration for BEX IV:
· Arbor Heights Elementary: Replace existing building with new/expanded facility by 2019. The school will be at an interim site starting in 2017. We understand the building is in need of replacement, but we will not have enough cash flow from levy funding to move this project up within BEX. However, we will analyze the pros and cons of other funding options to hopefully start this work sooner.
· Bagley Elementary: Modernize and build an addition by 2020.
· Fairmount Park building: Open this existing building with necessary upgrades, add classrooms and a lunchroom by 2014.
· Jane Addams K-8: Move to Pinehurst K-8 and open Jane Addams building as a middle school by 2015. We will work with the Pinehurst community on next steps for the school.
· Lincoln building: Modernize and open as a new high school by 2019.
· Loyal Heights Elementary: Modernize and build addition by 2018.
· Mann building: Modernize and build addition for NOVA by 2014
· Meany Middle School: Reconfigure for a comprehensive central region middle school by 2017.
· Northeast Seattle elementary school: To meet growing capacity, add K-5 school on Thornton Creek site by 2016.
· Olympic Hills: Replace existing building with a new/expanded facility by 2017.
· Queen Anne Elementary: Build classroom and gym addition to the building by 2019.
· Schmitz Park Elementary: Replace existing Genesee Hill building with a new/expanded facility on the Genesee Hill site; relocate Schmitz Park to the new facility by 2015.
· Wilson-Pacific: Replace building with a new elementary and a new middle school for additional capacity by 2017. We will work with the Cascade Parent Partnership Program and Middle College on determining new locations.
· Wing Luke Elementary: Replace existing building with a new/expanded facility by 2020.
· World School: We are continuing to work on finalizing a location.
These projects were chosen with four criteria in mind: 1) safety and security, 2) meeting capacity needs, 3) building condition and 4) maximizing flexibility for programs and services.
In addition, the BEX IV plan includes:
· Technology improvements: Wireless in every school and needed hardware upgrades.
· Seismic improvements: About 50 schools would receive seismic upgrades.
· Lunchroom and core facilities: New lunchrooms at Green Lake and McGilvra elementary schools.
· Science labs at Aki Kurose, Mercer, McClure and Eckstein middle schools.
· Major preventive maintenance and infrastructure improvements.
· Interim downtown school: Dependent upon external partnership funding.
· Capacity flexibility: Building larger core facilities to provide for expansion and including academic program placement and services close to where families live.
The latest BEX IV list of possible projects totals about $675 million. Additional information is online at http://bit.ly/SPSBEX . We invite families and community members to attend a public meeting to learn more about the BEX projects and to offer public testimony.
· Wednesday, Oct. 10, 4-6 p.m. – Board Work Session, John Stanford Center (information only, no public testimony).
· Wednesday, Oct. 17, 4:15 p.m. – Regular School Board meeting, expected introduction of BEX IV list. Public testimony taken (prior sign-up required).
· Wednesday, Oct. 24, 4-5 p.m. – BEX IV and Operations levies public comment session, John Stanford Center. Public testimony taken.
· Wednesday, Nov. 7, 4:15 p.m. – School Board meeting, expected vote on BEX IV project list.
In the meantime, we continue to collect, record and review all input. Please send comments to capacity@seattleschools.org.
Today we are writing to update you on our enrollment growth challenges. We have two levies up for renewal in February 2013 – our Operations Levy and our Building Excellence (BEX IV) IV Capital Levy.
Our BEX IV levy will include a list of recommended projects for 2014-2021, which we are presenting to the School Board at a work session 5:45-7:15 p.m., Oct. 10 at the John Stanford Center. A final vote by the Board is expected in November.
Below is a summary of currently proposed projects under consideration for BEX IV:
· Arbor Heights Elementary: Replace existing building with new/expanded facility by 2019. The school will be at an interim site starting in 2017. We understand the building is in need of replacement, but we will not have enough cash flow from levy funding to move this project up within BEX. However, we will analyze the pros and cons of other funding options to hopefully start this work sooner.
· Bagley Elementary: Modernize and build an addition by 2020.
· Fairmount Park building: Open this existing building with necessary upgrades, add classrooms and a lunchroom by 2014.
· Jane Addams K-8: Move to Pinehurst K-8 and open Jane Addams building as a middle school by 2015. We will work with the Pinehurst community on next steps for the school.
· Lincoln building: Modernize and open as a new high school by 2019.
· Loyal Heights Elementary: Modernize and build addition by 2018.
· Mann building: Modernize and build addition for NOVA by 2014
· Meany Middle School: Reconfigure for a comprehensive central region middle school by 2017.
· Northeast Seattle elementary school: To meet growing capacity, add K-5 school on Thornton Creek site by 2016.
· Olympic Hills: Replace existing building with a new/expanded facility by 2017.
· Queen Anne Elementary: Build classroom and gym addition to the building by 2019.
· Schmitz Park Elementary: Replace existing Genesee Hill building with a new/expanded facility on the Genesee Hill site; relocate Schmitz Park to the new facility by 2015.
· Wilson-Pacific: Replace building with a new elementary and a new middle school for additional capacity by 2017. We will work with the Cascade Parent Partnership Program and Middle College on determining new locations.
· Wing Luke Elementary: Replace existing building with a new/expanded facility by 2020.
· World School: We are continuing to work on finalizing a location.
These projects were chosen with four criteria in mind: 1) safety and security, 2) meeting capacity needs, 3) building condition and 4) maximizing flexibility for programs and services.
In addition, the BEX IV plan includes:
· Technology improvements: Wireless in every school and needed hardware upgrades.
· Seismic improvements: About 50 schools would receive seismic upgrades.
· Lunchroom and core facilities: New lunchrooms at Green Lake and McGilvra elementary schools.
· Science labs at Aki Kurose, Mercer, McClure and Eckstein middle schools.
· Major preventive maintenance and infrastructure improvements.
· Interim downtown school: Dependent upon external partnership funding.
· Capacity flexibility: Building larger core facilities to provide for expansion and including academic program placement and services close to where families live.
The latest BEX IV list of possible projects totals about $675 million. Additional information is online at http://bit.ly/SPSBEX . We invite families and community members to attend a public meeting to learn more about the BEX projects and to offer public testimony.
· Wednesday, Oct. 10, 4-6 p.m. – Board Work Session, John Stanford Center (information only, no public testimony).
· Wednesday, Oct. 17, 4:15 p.m. – Regular School Board meeting, expected introduction of BEX IV list. Public testimony taken (prior sign-up required).
· Wednesday, Oct. 24, 4-5 p.m. – BEX IV and Operations levies public comment session, John Stanford Center. Public testimony taken.
· Wednesday, Nov. 7, 4:15 p.m. – School Board meeting, expected vote on BEX IV project list.
In the meantime, we continue to collect, record and review all input. Please send comments to capacity@seattleschools.org.
Comments
-North End Mom
In doing so the school district is taking Eckstein - already the wealthiest middle school in the district (based on Free/Reduced Lunch rate) - and making it even more wealthy.
That said, it is a small campus and I can't imagine putting Jane Addams there.
Get real. These are the parents who are in the backrooms at JSCEE advocating for all children, oh yes, but most certainly also for their own. And their own aren't voting for BEX unless they see another middle school in the Northeast. It's the talk of the area or so I've been told.
The only building that fits the bill is Jane Addams. If you think otherwise then you don't know the symbiotic PTA district relationship.
One of the many reasons I am on my usual rant of rejecting the PTA as useful to most kids in the south end. Not to mention a good portion of the north.
Jane Addams should grab Pinehurst and be glad it isn't missing a chair when the music stops. The current Pinehurst population and our kids at World School don't have a chair. Or much of a prayer it seems.
Southie
Ben
In 2005, the utilization rate analysis for Pinehurst indicated enrollment was 273 with or without portables.
Almost makes me want to vote for charters to get a front row seat.
Downtown will say the enrollment is a function of its current building size. No one gave Jane Addams the right to a huge program. Its current building allowed expansion. Now its next building won't. So Jane Addams will now have a small enrollment. But don't worry - NE parents will have their new middle school.
Agree with Southie on how this game is being played and on who the players are. Membership to the exclusive PTA hobnobbing club downtown has its benefits. The losers are AS1 - Pinehurst and the Jane Addams parents who should have known better than to believe district promises.
DistrictWatcher
Also, here's a repost of Pinehurst School History. Which says that enrollment peaked in 1952 with 5 portables.
Shrinking our population makes the NE capacity crunch even tighter - especially since as a smaller school, the middle school program is less viable - we won't continue to see the growth at middle school that we've seen (adding a third cohort at 6th grade this year).
Also, isn't JA environment-focused? Thornton Creek runs through the Northgate parking lot acouple of blocks away, but Pinehurst itself is a big cement block. No grass that I remember.
SavvyVoter
It amazes me that would be considered okay - to the district, to the city - and even to the NE parents that get to stay at Eckstein.
And if the capacity of Pinehurst is around 273 or so, that isn't even enough to have 2 classes per grade, K-5. That isn't downsizing the program, it's killing it.
~ Angry Parent who thinks the district is using inaccurate data AGAIN
I'm sorry to be bitter and cynical and downright ornery. That's SPS's fault, not yours.
Perhaps you missed this from the previous thread: As usual, District Communications have been HORRID on letting communities know where they stand. Was there any advance news to these communities that they were likely to be messed with? No. No notice. It makes parents like me INSANE.
DistrictWatcher
I just don't get the need for two more middle schools in the north end. One should be enough. And that's Wilson-Pacific.
The district "promised" there would be no changes to the Jane Addams K-8 through the end of BEXIV planning in 2013. That one is in writing. Don't know if any other promises were.
- Also a district watcher
Oh! But they believe in Creative Approach Schools (makes them easier to charterize).
We have a basic choice to make here. Are we going to wait 3-5 years for a new middle school to open or are we going to solve the problem we face now with the capacity that is available now? Not to mention that building another new school (since Wilson-Pacific is needed too) would cost upwards of $80 million and we have no lot to place it on.
Yes, it's bad for Pinehurst, and it's not great for Jane Addams. I'm not sure how that compares to a school that is 20%-30% over capacity now, with much more expected in the next year or two.
If you don't like this, please tell us what would be better that solves the gross overcrowding problem at Eckstein.
- A Jane Addams parent
....
But today I am writing because our team has been looking at the Middle School numbers in the north end again, and seem to have come to the conclusion that this may be a much smaller problem than some of the “sky is falling” crowd would like us to believe.
Please consider the following:
• Using FACMAC’s stated high north end enrollment projection for the 2017-18 school year – we need 5269 middle school seats. I know that many people, including some of the District staff, question just how high this number should actually be – but I will work from the 5269 number for now.
• Then using SPS published program capacities (without portables), plus the new 1250 at Wilson Pacific MS – we have 5217 middle school seats available (assuming that JA is allowed to grow to 450 MS seats)
• That leaves a gap of only 52 students (1%) to house in portables – far below the targeted district wide average of 5%
• If you leave the 2011 portable capacity of 561 seats in place – we actually have available capacity for 509 MORE students than the FACMAC high number. This helps cover if the trajectory continues at a high rate for an additional year or two.
From these numbers, it seems that we are spending a huge amount of time and effort on a non-problem. The only reason we have a crisis is if the District and FACMAC are not considering the 1070 seats that exist in the Option Programs in their calculations. That would be a massive, unnecessary constraint in light of the many capacity issues the District is faced with. These Option Programs have proven to sustain their capacity – with continued growth pressure at both Salmon Bay and Jane Addams.
Based on this, an additional north end Middle School is not needed. If more permanent capacity is desired, enlarging Whitman and/or Eckstein to the size of the new Wilson Pacific Middle School can meet that need without the costs of constructing, establishing, and ongoing operation of a new program. Both campuses have ample space, especially if trading away some of their large portable numbers.
Using scarce BEX IV resources to solve a non-issue, or to totally eliminate portables in the north end, certainly seems like an unnecessary use of funds that are desperately needed in other areas of the district. Arbor Heights and many other programs are surely in greater need.
Thanks for your consideration.
Dan Suiter
Jane Addams Parent and BEX team member
Thanks!
What huge changes all coming out of nowhere!
Jane Addams to Pinehurst!! Who asked for this? It won't fit. What are they thinking?
"work with the Pinehurst community"? What the heck does that mean? Next steps for the school? What could that mean?
What happens to the Schmitz Park building? They don't say.
Bagley is back on the list!!
Ooh! More communities that the District will "work with" - Middle College and CPPP
Green Lake and McGilvra are the schools that are getting the core facilities. Interesting. Do they plan to expand McGilvra? That whole "capacity flexibility" thing is still vague.
The "Interim Downtown School" is still on the list.
I don't know where these changes came from, but I know that they did not come from the community meetings. So if they are not listening to the community, then who are they listening to?
Kinda reminds me of the stereotyped Soviet Union.
Well, it seems like they may have listened to the Bagley parents at the community meetings (congrats, Bagley)
-North End Mom
Further I have to wonder if the district secretly wants I-1240 to pass and is ensuring to lay the ground work for that to happen.
- Front Row Seats Might Not Be Too Hard To Come By
Likely to VOTE NO on the BEX Levy.
Signed JA Parent since the beginning.
They could become Creative Approach Schools and seek a waiver from the program placement policy and policy F21.00 which gives the superintendent the authority to move them. Of course, the Creative School Committee and the Board would have to approve that, so it won't happen either.
I'll ponder it, but I don't think that Jane Addams or Pinehurst has a hope in hell.
What's interesting to me is how the District's own data shows that the whole exercise is unnecessary. With these changes, the capacity in the north far exceeds the high projection.
Didn't you hear? We have state level legislation and we do not need to wait for Creative Approach. See HB 1546 (Innovative Schools) http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2011-12/Pdf/Bills/Session%20Laws/House/1546-S2.SL.pdf
and the RCWs that were added and modified with it's passage in the 2011 legislative session.
Innovative Schools opens the door to a first step in the Charter School conversion.
Savvy Washingtonian
- Savvy Washingtonian
My question--what do you think this means? "academic program placement and services close to where families live"
How about moving the Wilson-Pacific construction up to the front of the line? Start design and demo as soon as BEX is approved and the bonds are available. That should have Wilson MS open by fall 2015. That would create immediate relief for Whitman AND Eckstein. It'd do more, I bet, than turning JA back into a middle school.
Why the Wilson-Pacific construction is so late -- 2017? -- is beyond me. We need a middle school in the north something bad.
By the time the modernization/extension is complete, Bagley will be 90 years old. As is, at 82, it's the oldest school in the Seattle system that's never been expanded or remodeled. It's a veritable Fenway Park of Seattle schools.
~trying to come up with reasonable solutions
I would have hoped at this stage in the game the plan would be subject to fine tuning. I'm mostly following Jane Addams but it seems in the last 3 revisions we've had it moving, staying put and moving elsewhere. This is late stage thrashing. Very worrying.
~still searching for reasonable solutions
The need for funding in other areas is so overwhelming, and the number are just not there to support a school at this time. I am not interested in handing over my own money to make a downtown developer's project look better. We need to focus on the kids who are already in overcrowded, moldy, crappy buildings.
- This Is Insanity Defined
As Charlie says, who is the district listening to because we all went to at least one community meeting.
As for 1240, I am going to fight to the bitter/sweet end. However, AFTER the election I will have much to say (especially about those who stood by and did nothing). You reap what you sow. And as we all learn, if you sow the wind, don't be surprised when you reap the whirlwind.
(And, I have never seen so many people positioning themselves to be on the Charter Commission.)
Our fearless leader's words of support? His entire email said, "FYI, here's an email you'll get from SPS today." Wow, thanks.
:::sigh:::
~Nearly outta here
-maple leaf dad
And then they always act so surprised when we can't get our enrollment to bounce; puzzling, huh? It's irksome that we finally recruited some students from the local Muslim community (which is quite large, since the mosque is just a couple of blocks away) to Pinehurst. It's really hard to see this as anything other than an effort to get rid of AS1 and cripple JA. Go to the NORMAL schools, willya, they seem to be saying.
I have nothing against Jane Adams and have many friends with kids who are students there and support their right to be upset and really was impressed at their tour. I do not, however support this bashing of Eckstein. It is not productive and does not make sense.
Eckstein and not wealthy mom (of a child with a disability battling the overcrowded halls)
(http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/1583136/File/Departmental%20Content/school%20board/12-13%20agendas/101012agenda/20121010_Presentation_BEXWkSess.pdf)
Check out slide 14, which shows this plan OVERBUILDS by HUNDREDS of middle school seats in the north end.
I understand that Eckstein needs relief - but a 1250 seat middle school at Wilson Pacific will bring that relief.
The current plan to reopen Jane Addams as a middle school goes too far, and effectively cripples 2 option schools that both serve valuable roles in the north end. This is an unnecessary disruption for hundreds of families and a waste of money that could be better used to fix crumbling buildings.
NW Mom
And the numbers that Spruiter just posted show that the need is just not there (as I suspected in my previous post.) We are seriously going to overbuild middle school seats by 500 in the north? That's essentially the difference between a 900 seat comprehensive school and 450 seats that Jane Addams can currently have in middle school grades.
So I'll repeat - We are seriously going to overbuild middle school seats by 500??
And what if the enrollment ends up around the mid-range projection. 1000 extra seats. Yes, 1000! It's on page 21 of the document shared by Spruiter.
The real problem is not that we need capacity, besides a new Wilson-Pacific middle school. Eckstein needs relief now. So start an interim W-P at John Marshall as soon as possible. Build W-P as soon as possible. Then if more capacity is needed later, expand Eckstein by 300 with a new wing or annex. There would be plenty of room without all the portables.
It looks like there won't be enough $$ in the levy early enough to begin construction on a Wilson Pacific solution to Eckstein overcrowding. And don't forget, West Seattle and other areas want their buildings started early too. (As does the Downtown Crowd, but don't get me started on that boondoggle of non-urgency. People need to be outraged that it is still showing its face when Solomonesque decisions are happening to existing school populations.)
Moving JA to Pinehurst and closing AS1/Pinehurst looks great to Facilities. Note that there is no $$ in the plan to upgrade Pinehurst (helloooo portables), so that's a "free" solution to making a middle school available at the current JA building. That's darn attractive.
And without anyone in charge of academics downtown right now except two fill-in bodies, there is no powerful advocate for the JA and AS1 programs.
From a Mitt Romney-CEO-bottom-line perspective, the jilt of JA and AS#1 is the least painful, most beneficial chess move for BEX. (I am not saying I agree with the perspective. I'm an Obama-backer.)
EdVoter
Then we get to Hardball Part Two - The NE parents are saying they won't vote for BEX without an immediate middle school solution. They do have a point - the district botched projections so badly, for so long, despite so much community input, that Eckstein area residents are now cuthroat. They want their school NOW. The fact that a whole bunch of politicians and PTA players and plain old high net worth families live in the area cinches the deal. District darwinism says the smaller less powerful JA and Pinehurst populations get screwed. They've got no IOUs owed to them by JSCEE. And JSCEE has tried to kill Pinehurst for years anyhow.
The levy game is not for newbies. It rips the soul right out of well-meaning parents.
DistrictWatcher
Almost as surprising were the charts included in this presentation.
The chart on slide 18 that shows the capacity of elementary schools in the southwest is misleading because it presumes that the District will be using the whole capacity of Boren (760). That's simply not the case at all. In fact, if the STEM program moves out of Boren and into Fairmount Park the new capacity at Fairmount Park will be full with no one in the Boren building. And, instead of being way ahead of the demand in 2014-2015 as the graph suggests, the area will be desperately behind the demand. It's very deceptive to count the Boren capacity when the building will be empty.
Slide 19 shows that the District intends to completely over-build in the north end ending with over 1,000 more elementary seats than even the high-range projection forecasts. At least one of these projects isn't needed. It is curious how you reckon that the move of the Jane Addams program to the Pinehurst building will somehow create capacity.
Slide 20 shows that the downtown elementary is completely unnecessary.
Slide 21 shows that the southeast region, which lost an addition to Mercer in the latest update, really needed it. It also shows that the District is headed for disaster with the middle schools in the southwest but has no plan or intention to steer away from that disaster. We are overbuilding elementary schools in the north while middle schools in the southeast and southwest need capacity.
Slide 22 shows that the proposed plan would result in a surplus of about 600 middle school seats in the north. Jane Addams, by the way, has two d's in it.
These slides show that the list of proposed projects has only a passing familiarity with the enrollment projections. It all makes me wonder what these people are thinking, but I guess I'll never know since they won't tell. They don't offer that kind of transparency.
In cash-strapped times, voters might one day say no. (I certainly will vote no if that idiotic downtown school thing isn't dispatched before I fill in my ballot, for instance.) The district had better have made contingency plans for when the levy goes down, as well as plans for what to do if it passes. But have they?
Is the environmental science pragram at AS1? What are you referring to about Eckstein and APP?
Thanks
"...and including academic program placement and services close to where families live."
Here's what this means. Some upstanding downtown business interest will pony up with some "external partnership funding"... (or wait, maybe it will be the City of Seattle that somehow does it - that's right, the external partner doesn't have to be a private interest, we can empty the public coffers with both hands!) Note that the partner funding will be tiny, so SPS will still be on the hook for essentially an entire new school "downtown".
Close to where families live! After all, look at all of those families...downtown!
It's a done deal.
The rest of the city's population can just wrestle with the unbelievably unprofessional planning and analysis of whatever "staff" put together this witches brew.
Oompah
Oompah
And to everyone who thinks this was decided on the basis of racism/classism, that Eckstein parents somehow wanted to exclude the poor huddled masses, I'm calling bullshit. I don't normally swear on this forum, but it's pure and simple bullshit and insults our intelligence. At every meeting I attended (and there were lots of them), there was discussion of numbers of seats needed, population growth, and where that growth was happening. If diversity came up at all (which was rare), it was about improving diversity at schools. Yes, putting in a comprehensive middle school at Jane Addams will likely reduce diversity at Eckstein. It will also put the new seats near where students live, which is the whole point of the exercise.
The Jane Addams building is needed now because Eckstein is overcrowded to the point of being unsafe now, and many more kids are on the way. Wilson-Pacific cannot come on line any sooner because the money won't be available until its current schedule, and because it takes time to start up a middle school. If you want to call that Romney-esque politics, that's your right, but I think it misses the point.
You can cite all the spreadsheets you want. You can pat yourself on the back for all the meetings you want. It only reinforces the point that you want to kill 2 school populations to fix a hard problem for a more privileged population. And you want to do it at the 11th hour of the process with NO NOTICE to our communities.
You can A) have a little liberal compassion and find another solution to the hard problem. Or B)perhaps you'd like the harder problem of not having BEX pass. You can only push the little people so far. My friends in Arbor Heights have the same mindset.
I Am Disgusted Near 130th
And PS The downtown school is the cincher on EdVoter's Romney Politics point. What a moneyed class farce.
I agree that the rhetoric about racism/classism and Eckstein is getting overblown, but regardless of intention, that financial inequity would be the result of this proposal.
The short-short version is that reasonable people read high, medium and low as nouns, in a contextual sequence. They think the high projection was calculated aggressively to determine an upper limit that contrasts to a low projection that as calculated to be a bottom limit and that well ... medium would be the reasonable person's choice.
That was not the case.
The description was based on the result of the calculation
- average of 5 years from 5 years ago (shockingly this result was low)
- average of the last five years, 3 from old SAP and 2 from new - this was the medium result
- just using two years of NSAP data in isolation - high.
In other words, using highly probable NSAP data gives you a shockingly high number. Using very very old data from before the closures gives you low data.
Averaging those two gives you medium data.
So if the trends that started with the NSAP continue, it is very probable that the high numbers are actually quite low. And one year into the projections, enrollment is hundreds of students higher than the high number.
For example, my 4th grader was part of a "bubble" that caught the district off guard when they entered Kindergarten. That year, every NE elementary school added a K class, some in late spring and against their will, to accommodate about 300 more K children than the district expected just in this one quadrant of the city. And, those bubbles continued in subsequent years. So, Eckstein is really just now starting to see the effects of these larger-than-normal cohorts, in my estimation, and crowding will only get worse as these cohorts age up. Projecting future enrollment seems doubly complicated by the change to neighborhood schools and normal growth that was already happening.
IMHO, I believe everyone is asking the wrong questions. The question on the table is how to best spend $650 Million in order to fix capacity issues, fix safety issues and improve building conditions.
There is no answer to that question because it is $2 Billion problem. To do everything on the list is at least $2 Billion and might very well be more than that.
That means the question is how to best fill your $2 Billion dollar hole with a $100 Million shovel because you are only getting $100 Million per year with this levy.
I don' t have a good answer because there isn't a good answer. There are only answers that help some aspect and answers that don't even fix any aspect.
That 4th grade "bubble" is a common misunderstanding. The Kindergarten cohort has been increasing in size for 11 years now. Every K class for 11 years has been larger than the previous year with one flat year.
The current 4th grade class was the "tipping point" that shifted total district wide enrollment because it was year 7 of continuous growth. In other words 6 years of smaller cohorts had graduated. Hence, there was now a bubble!
This is because the district presented all data as aggregate data and it was not possible to see the trend until you starting looking at cohorts, rather than total numbers.
Your 4th grader is NOT captured in the low number. Your 4th grader is captured in the medium number. The trend that followed the NSAP is only captured in the high numbers.
why was my comment deleted about schmitz park being illegal in having too many kids per sq foot?"
That is because those comments and the one above were not signed with a pseudonym.
Even if they build all this, there is not going to be enough seats over the next 10 to 20 years.
The North End almost approaching BOOM TIMES again.
Residential construction in the NW is growing exponentially.
And most likely the high projections will end up higher than reality. Many people often move out of Seattle when they have kids. That has not been happening lately. That trend will reverse as the economy strengthens and enrollment growth will slow.
Why is it with school district enrollment of almost half that number, we don't have enough space?
What are you? His mother? No, Eric B. is not "cool". We all know about the overcrowding. We have known this was a problem for years. YEARS. That's why JA was opened in the first place. What we want are thoughtful, equitable SOLUTIONS from the District and from FACMAC. Eric B. fails to provide one.
First, if this 'solution' is all so clear to Eric B, then why is the closure of Pinehurst and displacement of JA to a too small, crumbling building sneaking into the planning queue THE DAY BEFORE the board workshop to finalize the BEX list and mere days before official entry of projects onto the board meeting agenda.
If this was such an onerous one-solution problem, then BEX FACMAC and the District could have telegraphed this option to the community weeks, no MONTHS ago. And don't use the historical status of Cedar Park (so can't move JA there) as an excuse. That started looking like a problematic issue a few months ago.
Therefore to punt JA and Pinehurst is either a Hail Mary last ditch solution to appease Eckstein (pathetic planning for a years-old issue), or this isn't a last minute solution...it was developed behind the scenes and sprung on us at the last minute so that we could not mount opposition. Even worse than the Hail Mary.
Not cool. Not cool at all.
Finally, Eric B. needs to stop using the future tense, like this boondoggle is a done deal, as in "Pinehurst WILL be expanded for JA", instead of the more realistic "Pinehurst WOULD be expanded."
This is far from a done deal.
"I Am Disgusted Near 130th"
Based on current enrollment (this year's enrollment numbers, by cohort, rolling up at 100%) including APP students, building a 1250 seat middle school at Wilson Pacific gives us enough middle school seats to bring Eckstein and Whitman down to 1% in portables until the 2018-2019 school year (and keep Hamilton within building capacity.
If the cash flow isn't there to build Wilson Pacific right away - start the school at John Marshall, which was the original plan. Renovations have already begun there and it will be ready to receive students by 2014 - in time for the coming crunch.
The needs are too great to spend an extra $25 million to rebuild the Pinehurst building into a building that is too small for Jane Addams.
I am relived that Bagley is back on BEX. Our community worked hard to show the district the issues and I'm glad they listened. My children will not be at Bagley to benefit from BEX, but I'm happy for the neighborhood. The Aurora Corridor really needs Bagley.
However, I'm troubled by the changes at AS1 and JA, and that Thornton Creek will still get a new elementary. I have no idea how they will move 1000 students in and out of the neighborhood surrounding Thornton Creek twice a day.
One more thing about Montessori - Bagley started Montessori because our school was going to be closed and we needed a program that would be attractive to the community to boost enrollment. The same is true for JSIS I think. Obviously the special programs have worked and I think it's time to treat them as option programs instead and expand them. The argument that Montessori is for rich white people is false for Bagley. It wasn't created to be exclusive, it was created to be inclusive and bring kids to our school. We have a large SpEd population and many of those kids are in Montessori because it works best for them. We as a community work hard to be one school with three programs, not three programs in one school.
Graham Hill Montessori worked differently because they had a preschool that fed into the Montessori program. The preschool was not free, so this created a disparity within the school. That is not the case for Bagley. I know that Graham Hill parents tried hard to unite the school, the differences in population between the two programs made that difficult.
Again, this is bullshit. We looked for another solution. We looked at about half a dozen, and none of them worked. I'm not really clear on the rest of your point. Are you saying that it's OK to have massive overcrowding for rich white kids but not for anyone else? Because that's what it sounds like.
Just to be clear, I would dearly love to have BEX IV be a $1 billion program so that we could do this up right. I would love to not have to displace the children currently in Pinehurst and some of the kids (not all of them) at Jane Addams. But it doesn't work. We have a wave of kids in elementary school right now about to break over the middle schools. See Kellie's comments for more details. Eckstein is already grossly overcrowded, and we're talking about adding another couple hundred kids before Wilson-Pacific could open.
Now, if you have another comprehensive middle school building just sitting around waiting for a school population, by all means let's use it. If you have a real solution, lay it out. Don't tell the people who have spent a year trying to find a solution that the least bad option is like strapping the kids to the top of the car. Give us your solution.
Given what kellie and eric b say (and they know much more than I ever will), it sounds like we shouldn't be worried about over building in the north. Also, as kellie has pointed out before: you shouldn't count on running a neighborhood assignment plan at 100% of capacity.
I am worried that no one is properly tracking all of the kids in Option Schools and other programs (APP etc.). Are they building two seats for all of those kids (or rather building them one near their house and ignoring the fact that many will never sit there)?
It is hard to judge the merit of the Jane Addams proposal without details. The slide deck doesn't seem to have any. I know enough about the district to not even try for a timely answer there. So Eric B. you appear to be the only person with details right now.
*Would JA cohort somehow be divided?
*Is Pinehurst a proposed temporary or permanent solution?
*How much money would need to go into Pinehurst to outfit it for Jane Addams? What type of renovations are needed? Classrooms? Common space?
*Are portables also part of the solution at Pinehurst?
*Does Pinehurst have outdoor recreation space? Someone earlier said it doesn't.
*Is it your feeling that the current Pinehurst program would be ended, or moved. We need someone to tell us what the district won't.
*Is Eckstein's footprint at capacity? Can it legally take more students, using portables. (I am not wondering whether this is a good idea, just whether it is possible.)
In defense of "Disgusted Near North 130th", it isn't really fair to demand a better solution when the people working on this for two years haven't provided one...and neither are they doing an especially good job at defending this last minute twist. But perhaps with answers to the details above, some different ideas might come to the surface, or the bloggers here can agree that JA to Pinehurst really is the only option.
"Trying to keep an open mind for the greater good. But admittedly struggling with how this is playing out."
Two bedroom condos are what is replacing them.
The jobs that pay enough to buy a house in Seattle, aren't in Seattle.
Seattle's population, at 562,000, is substantial but is now only 16 percent of the metropolitan population of 3.5 million. Even suburban King has more than twice as many folks as Seattle. How can this be, one may ask, with the vast amount of redevelopment and construction? The answer is simple. Seattle's average household size is small, 2.17, as many families move to the slightly more affordable suburbs, or opt for houses instead of apartments, and affluent couples and singles outbid middle-class families for those houses and condos.
To learn more about our small household size, let's look at kinds of households, in Seattle versus suburbia. Seattle is off the chart! Here, like the U.S. as a whole, two-thirds of suburban households are families, 25 percent to 30 percent are singles, and 5 percent to 7 percent are unmarried partners or roommates. But in the city of Seattle, an astounding 44 percent of households are single persons. (Along with San Francisco, Seattle's singles percentage is the highest in the nation for a major city.) A very high 12 percent are unmarried partners (often de-facto families), only a little behind San Francisco. Only one-third of households are traditional husband-wife families.
http://crosscut.com/2008/03/12/real-estate/12147/New-figures-confirm-Seattles-housing-affordability/
Many of us have not wanted to float our proposals on an open forum like this blog in an effort to be sensitive to other school communities potentially impacted. We are not coming in at the last minute on this issue.
To those who have floated the idea that legalizing charters would somehow solve all this, keep in mind that charter schools need buildings too, and what we have here are major capacity problems (among other issues) that require more and better buildings in order to be solved.
Unless you're fine with the ugly scenarios that have played out in NYC and elsewhere in which privately run charters have taken over public school buildings and pushed existing schools out, adding charters to the SPS mix would not solve the capacity roulette game this district likes to play, and would likely only exacerbate it.
Answering to the best of my knowledge, but not speaking for any other group including FACMAC or staff.
* I said some JA kids, but not all because the program is currently at about 580 students and if I recall correctly, the modified Pinehurst building will take about 450 students (9 classes @ 50 students each), so there are about 130 kids who won't fit. I don't know how that decision gets made or who makes it.
* I would expect that Pinehurst is a permanent solution. However, if at some point down the road Jane Addams looked a lot like Pinehurst (very small program using a medium-sized space), I don't think there are any guarantees. If Jane Addams is successful and is filling classes, then I would be surprised if it got moved again.
* I don't remember what the budget for the Pinehurst renovation is. Those papers are at home, and I'm at work. I would expect (but am guessing) that they would cover a few items: more capacity/homerooms. Since Pinehurst is a K-8, they shouldn't need science labs and other thing, in theory at least.
* I don't know if portables are part of the solution for Jane Addams at Pinehurst. The capacity is needed at a near enough term that I'd be a little surprised if they weren't, but there's also not much space on site.
* Looking at Google Maps, it looks like there is a playground for K-5 kids and a smallish triangular grass field.
* I can't say if the current Pinehurst program will be ended or moved. The simplest thing for the District would be to end the program and give the students an option/priority to enroll at Broadview-Thompson. If it fit, Pinehurst could theoretically move into another building (eg Cedar Park). However, see the caveats below.
* I'm not an expert on Eckstein, so someone else may have better info. I would be very leery of putting more portables at Eckstein. It looks like they already have six portables on site plus an outbuilding, and I have heard crowding in the halls is a major problem. I'm not sure the building core (bathrooms, auditorium, gym, lunchroom, etc.) could support more students in portables.
More on Pinehurst. I'm probably going to get accused of being Romney again, but Pinehurst has stagnant enrollment when the rest of the area has grown. They say on their own website that they expect to have many new students enrolling after implementing a restructuring plan in 2009-2010. They went on to lose 39 students between the 09-10 school year and the 10-11 year. I understand that the District has not supported alternative schools, and things could have been different if they did, but the school is not being successful in attracting students.
PS I want to clarify that I am not, nor have I ever been, cool.
I think the number of portable classrooms at Eckstein is somewhere in the mid-teens. Many more than six. My kid's soccer games are at Eckstein, and driving around all the portables to get to the field can be a challenge.
Speaking of the Ecstein field. Why is it up for replacement in BEXIV? It looks pretty nice to me.
Also, I think you wrote something about John Rogers enrollment somewhere in this thread? The school grew by 24% this year! We took 3 kindergartens (the building is sized for 2-up), and added kids in the upper grades, too, especially 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.
Lots of growth up this way.
-JR Mom
Are you a member of FACMAC?
If so, could you please (or could someone please) tell us how many APP parents are on the FACMAC committee?
FACMAC purports to be objective, but it seems very heavily skewed towards APP representation. If it isn't skewed, then full open disclosure of that would be nice.
Note that I'm not asking "how many of these people directly represent APP" because I know that some members are on the committee in a different capacity, but are also APP parents.
--Winston
Assured enrollment at B-T for Pinehurst is not a 1:1 trade. B-T is not an alternative program. It's a standard neighborhood program.
If you dissolved Pinehurst the kids there would quite likely go back into local comprehensive middle schools and grade schools, thus increasing capacity pressures in neighborhood schools. Or they'd ask for preference to Salmon Bay K8 or Thornton Creek K5 as mitigation for their program dissolving, and that would create a different set of issues.
Alt Mama
My daughter was at Summit K12 for six years. During that time ( in 2000) fenced soccer fields were built on the south end facing Hale. In between the soccer fields and the building was a climber the parent group commissioned.
As well as a good sized parking lot with an enclosed shed on the west side of the school, there was a football field on th north side of site, as well as buildings for art studios, storage for civic light opera storage of sets.
When my D was there, Civic light Opera rented space as did, Pinehurst day care program, which took up one wing on the first floor. When the district decided to " reclaim" the building, both the day care facility were pushed out and Summit was told to increase enrollment without the district giving them support to do so.
The main building holds a gym with a climbing wall, cafeteria, library, with smaller rooms, full sized auditorium, black box theatre, dance studio, music rehearsal rooms with raked seating, and art rooms with multiple kilns.
Summit parent group commissioned the kilns, climbing wall, black box theatre, improvement to the auditorium sound system, a great deal of the library materials, & the play structure.
It made a pretty nice K-12.
Partial new roof was added in 2002, arts/science lab upgrades in 2003,
Wy not have the community that is currently there now, stay there & if they don't fill the space, allow another child care facility to move in?
And he doesn't want to be accused of being Romney strapping his dog on the roof of a car as a solution to overcrowding? That's the only funny part of this hatchet last minute proposal.
"I Am Disgusted Near 130th"
A lot of schools that were open in the early 70s are now closed -- temporary sites like Lincoln and John Marshall, or given away like Queen Anne High and University Heights and Interlake Elementary. I'm sure there are more that I'm not listing.
It's tragic that any responsible official advocated or voted for giving away (or selling for peanuts) real estate in a city where it'll be next to impossible to get it again. At most, they should have been leased.
This whole thing sounds to me like having two extra eggs to fit in your already-full cardboard container. Sure, you can take two out of the container, and slide your two extra in, but wait! What's this? I have two extra eggs again! How is this possible! [rolls eyes]
You don't make room by moving kids around. You make room by making room. Alleviating crowding at Eckstein by throwing other kids out of their school is what is proposed here. Let's not pretend it's anything else.
To your point of throwing other ideas out...did you discuss a scenario like this?
Cap Jane Addams at its current enrollment or even decrease its size for next year. The district could do this - it is an option program and could set whatever size it wants on it. This would be a temporary cap for a few years.
Scrunch up (a decidedly non-technical term) JA in its physical space in the building and move middle school APP there for now. Add portables to JA if necessary to accommodate both populations. There is a big footprint.
Use the space at Hamilton, a few (a FEW) additional portables at Eckstein, and the new Wilson-Pacific school @ John Marshall to slurp up (another non technical term) the incoming middle school tidal wave until WP gets built. That means the Board and Staff would have to do a redraw of middle school feeder patterns immediately. They have enough notice to do it for 2014, if not 2013 (next academic year)
Build Wilson Pacific larger (more wings? get creative) than currently projected as a standard middle school. Also allow additional room for APP middle school.
Move APP middle school to Wilson-Pacific when it is open. Uncap JA enrollment at that time.
Place additional programs during this time (if necessary) alongside Pinehurst K8. Like the homeschool resource center, for instance.
In something like this, all populations take a little pain, but no population bears all the pain, which is what it looks like is currently happening to JA and Pinehurst.
"Trying to keep an open mind for the greater good. But admittedly struggling with how this is playing out."
Please remember that the Wilson-Pacific complex is slated to include the north-end APP elementary, which currently is 500+ kids "temporarily" at Lincoln. So having a 1250-seat middle school makes more than 1750 students on that property.
Mom of 2
But with all the building we have done over the years, how many seats have been added, and how many taken away? does any one keep track?
I remember when University heights was open, but when was mcDonald closed?
I also remember when Lincoln & Queen Anne high schools were closed ( one in the south end & one in the north end, according to the district.)
James Monroe was also a jr high, as was Broadview Thompson.
TT minor was open, Horace Mann...
another mom
I like the plan from "Trying to keep an open mind for the greater good". Yes, Jane Addams has a large footprint and if needed could take quite a few portables. Especially now that the Nathan Hale renovation is done, such a big parking lot is no longer needed.
Moving Jane Addams to Pinehurst and kicking half the kids out should not even be on the table. As has been said, the school is a great fit for environmental science: the pond and creek nearby, garden, the greenhouse that was just finished a year ago.
With APP elementary on the Wilson Pacific property it would be a lot of kids, but as Eric keeps jamming on, there isn't much perfect about this BEX.
At least the "Keeping an Open Mind" proposal shows the liberal compassion I was asking for. And there may be other ideas out there when we turn the discussion from CEO spreadsheet numbers and a shove-this-baby-through-to-voters mentality to actual kids and their families.
"I Am Disgusted Near 130th"
Some numbers - actual numbers with clear labels and sources - would be nice, but I don't think we're going to get that and I don't think the Board is going to demand that.
There's a lot of stuff in this final update that surprises and mystifies us, but we can only guess about where it came from, what it means, or how in the world it is supposed to work. This evening we may get some of those answers, so it probably pays to hold off on the guessing for another six hours.
The most good we can do now is generate questions, not guesses, and hope that someone on the Board asks those questions (HA!) We, ourselves, will not get that chance.
But with all the building we have done over the years, how many seats have been added, and how many taken away? does any one keep track?
I don't think the District keeps track of things that could make them look foolish. The BEX levies seem to have been renovations of worn-out buildings, seismic problems, etc., not intended to accommodate more students.
Now maybe it's appropriate for a capital project to be viewed from an operations perspective, but I don't think so. We don't need these buildings for their own sake; we need them to house schools and programs. The schools and programs should be the driving force, not the buildings.
:)
Likely to be true and the reason the consultant demographer said for the sharp spike in enrollment.
Emerald Kity, in a word, technology. We need a lot more space for technology needs. And, as, well, a big priority is the ability to small-group. That said, I think we tend to overbuild in Seattle.
Suep is right. Charters BIGGEST need is facilities and yes, they want our buildings (even the new ones).
Ah the sports fields and playfields. Well, because of the high usage and our joint-use agreements with Parks, the fields are ALWAYS updated with every BTA/BEX.
APP Elementary at John Marshall? What about that scary freeway down the street (missing that both TOPS and JSIS are right NEXT to the freeway)?
Patrick is right; the BEX has been about renovations and additions, not so much about enrollment. This is a new and serious problem.
I do despair at what is playing out - how North Beach got bumped for Bagley, for example. I hope we hear answers today (I can't attend but I hope there is someone keeping good notes. If you want to write them up and send them, great. sss.westbrook@gmail.com.)
another mom
"You don't make room by moving kids around. You make room by making room."
And that is the heart of the issue. In operations, we say, "you need room for the dominos to fall." That is the problem. The intense and nearly desperate need for NEW space in both West Seattle North and NE Seattle.
There are slivers of space that could theoretically be stitched together into space but that is not the same as actual space.
The problem is that NEW space costs money and takes time to open and we are out of both. All of the easy (and relatively cheap) spaces were already put back into the system as part of the NSAP.
The district thought opening those five schools would get them to BEX. Unfortunately, that did not happen.
Sadly, all of the proposals to essentially disband option programs and send the students back to their neighborhoods, seems to conveniently omit that there isn't any space for these students at the attendance area schools either.
Jane Addams draws (shockingly) a large number of John Roger's families since it is so close, JR is over capacity. I love the two egg analogy. It is very apt.
Larger classrooms so that there is room for thirty five computer desks?
Seriously?
What exactly does " technology" mean, and has the increased $$$$ spent on supporting it paid off?
No, not for computer labs because the district has moved away from that. But every school has to have a number of computers, a server, someone to service that server, printers, extra cooling for all those machines, etc. Not to mention software and those expensive contracts that follow their purchase.
In the John Marshall closure report, it was stated that the site is not suitable for elementary. From a health perspective, it's proximity to the freeway and lack of open play space away from the freeway make it unsuitable. What makes it ideal location wise - just off of I-5 - is also what makes it unsuitable.
And it's just fine if middle school students get exposed to excessive exhaust, brake dust, and other nastiness? I vote we move JSCEE there instead.
But, why does JA -- which doesn't fit into Pinehurst -- get pulled in? If they need space, and JA is already FILLING its space -- why don't they just make Pinehurst a temporary middle school, until they can open a middle school at WP?
THEN, they can figure out whether there is anywhere, in the entire District, that can take Pinehurst -- including either Marshall or Lincoln as temporary sites. Given where we are in the space crunch -- it seems to me that if you are a "small" program -- and have no immediate prospects of growth -- you had darned well better find yourself a "small" space -- or you will get run over -- which is what is happening now.
Does Cedar Park fit Pinehurst's size better? Is there any other building where they could cohouse the program? If not -- I cannot see how it survives, because "underusing" space is just a magnet for trouble right now. It was only a minor "money issue" in the bad old days of shrinking enrollment. Now, it is a much bigger, less defensible position.
Testing for entrance into the Highly Capable Program is only for students currently enrolled in the district and residents of Shoreline.
-just fyi
That is a very popular notion and one supported by the outside demographer. However, it is unlikely to be true.
Gas prices have doubled and are unlikely to go back down when the economy strengthens. Gas prices change the suburban commuter economics.
But most importantly for Seattle, in many way the "guaranteed assignment plan" has created more choice for families than the old choice plan. Under the old plan, you could never be confident that you really lived close enough to a school to get in. Now you can move and be guaranteed that school. For anyone who can move, you have actual choice.
This means that the district has to deal with all the actual demand for space. They can't turn people away.
Moreover, I think it is notable that NONE of the enrollment projections factor in any NEW growth. The "high" projections simply calculates that the current post NSAP situation stays the same.
If there was a scenario that actually calculated future-possible growth, those numbers would be scary.
In terms of pollution -- we already have LOTS of schools very close to freeways, including TOPS (can't get much closer), Cleveland, etc. And frankly, if I HAD to deal with big exposure issues (not clear to me how bad they really are -- I have never read up on this), and they were my kids, I would rather expose each of them for 3 years when there is no recess issue (i.e. -- you can close windows and put in air filters) than for 6 years during a time when they have to play outside. I am not saying any of this is great -- it is a "lesser of two evils" argument. But unless you just buy into a "no recess" elementary school, I can't see that you could use Marshall for elementary.
It's also, sad to say, a dump. (But of course, it's OUR dump, which makes a difference!) Unless the district wants to march kids in there at gunpoint, they'll have to tear it down and build a new building there, and the money's just not there for that. (Got a GREAT climbing wall, though!) The triangular shape of the lot makes it awkward to imagine a larger building (two stories, maybe?) working well there for 500 students, but I'm not an architect. Perhaps it could be figured out.
It's disheartening, of course, to see one's school slated for destruction, especially when we've bumped up enrollment this year and, I was told by our 7th/8th language arts teacher, had the highest reading MSP scores of any 8th grade in SPS last year. See what academic performance gets you?
I sympathize with Pinehurst, it always hurts to have a school closed. Yet a small program can't occupy a medium-sized school indefinitely. I hope the district will do something better for them than "go to your neighborhood school".
You don't start a "comprehensive" school as a seed. The entire point of a comprehensive school is that the school is well ... um ... comprehensive. A comprehensive school needs to be a certain size to be successful. In other words, it must be bigger than a breadbox in order to have departments with department heads, electives, after school sports, etc.
You have to have a substantial student population. I am not certain what that size would be but Salmon Bay with 360 students is not considered comprehensive. I just don't see any way to start a "comprehensive" school in an interim location. There are all types of things that can be done in an interim location but none of them are comprehensive.
If the problem is not enough comprehensive middle school seats, then a solution must include ... comprehensive middle school seats.
I don't think that particular scenario was looked at, but I'd have to go back and look. Just looking it over now, I see a few substantial flaws:
* Hamilton APP is ~400-500 students if I recall correctly. JA currently occupies about 560 seats in a ~800-seat building. Scrunching JA up to fit in either bumps 150-250 JA students out of the building, or requires ~6-10 portables. Bumping that number of students out is worse than what happens at Pinehurst, and adding more than 4 portables requires a Master Use Permit, which takes lots of time and is subject to neighborhood review.
* Per people who know Eckstein better than me, there isn't much (if any) space for more portables there.
* Wholesale redrawing boundaries for this year has been taken off the table by the Board. There are some good reasons for this (lack of predictability, since we will redraw again when the schools start opening) and bad reasons (it's hard and difficult politically since there are always people who lose).
* I believe that much of the enrollment growth in the current Eckstein area is north of the school, so boundaries would have to be moved to very close to Eckstein to make it all work. That gets especially politically difficult.
I don't know if those flaws together are enough to be fatal. The political ones are driven by the Board, and are way above my pay grade. I do appreciate the effort to come up with solutions.
@Winston, yes I am on FACMAC. I'm working from memory, but I think there are 1 or 2 "official" APP reps on FACMAC, although there may be more parents of APP students on the committee. I'm not privy to the full resume of everyone there, so I don't want to speculate any further.
JA Parent from the beginnning
JA parent from the beginning
In the back of my mind all afternoon has been Kellie's post about how we cannot "solve" a 2 billion dollar problem with 600 million dollars. We just can't. Then, you add the "two egg" example. And --
It begins to make me wonder whether we are not, in the NE, at least, over the edge. Sort of like Wiley Coyote, when he is suspended in space, and looks behind him to where the cliff ended. Since booting Pinehurst out means all THOSE kids need seats, and shoving JA into the Pinehurst space shears off a hundred and fifty or so more -- who all need seats -- and none of these seats exist -- are we actually at the point where what needs to be done is that we have to double up and go to "shifts" in at least one north end middle school (I am thinking it would need to be Eckstein -- since that is the one that is most on fire) until space comes on line?
Dreadful thought, I know, but isn't that where the two egg example gets you (you actually CAN fit 14 eggs in a 12-egg carton for 6 hours a day each, if you do it 7 at a time!) I also have a feeling that nothing would sharpen the senses of levy voters (and even the downtown school clamorer) as much as something as dire as the need to run a school on split shifts until more space can be built.
Could it be this bad? Are we there?
While I don't think we are at shifts just yet. If BEX fails, we will be there. So yes, it is that over crowded.
"I Am Disgusted Near 130th"
But then Cedar Park was declared historic (very clever move by a NIMBY neighborhood) which made the removal of the decayed current structure, or remodel or addition prohibitively expensive to include in BEX IV. This may be too far out of the box, but what about physically moving the newly designated historic structure to a new site? I know I watch too much HGTV, (or at least my husband thinks so) but I saw an episode where they moved an enormous three story home from the Central District down to the ferry docks, to a barge, to a new location out in the San Juan’s for $200k. Move the Cedar Park structure or only the façade if that is all that is required to preserve historic to a different location. Maybe, to Magnuson or even Seattle Center to create a museum to Paul Thiery – the architect of the Space Needle and Cedar Park Elementary. I wish SPS would investigate as it very well may be reasonably cost effective to move the structure, give a new home to JA within their neighborhood, and expand middle school space in the NE without being prohibitively expensive.
I’m not in the camp that adding Wilson Pacific to help the NE, N, and NW will be enough. I am not a number crunching wiz but just based on personal experience and observation if the high projections from the District are just based on the first few years of the NSAP then they are wrong in regard to the NE and the high is way, way too low.
I’m extrapolating based on my children’s elementary school. Even if the high numbers are used the estimates will miss the mark so the current seats being added will not be overbuild. In our current NE elementary K class, 16% of the K students are families that moved to the area from outside of the state mid to late summer. These families did research on the public schools within SPS and intentionally chose to move into the boundary of their desired school. As they had several contenders both north and south I am comfortable in my presumption that our school is not the only school experiencing the same inflow based on the guarantees of the NSAP. Even my daughter’s third grade class is almost a third new families to the area. And a more easily dismissed observation…homes for sale in our area have almost been exclusively homes of retired couples with no children, or other residents with no children. Each and every sale has been to a family with either school age children plus preschool age children, or families with multiple preschool age children.
Based on how SPS does their projections currently they have no idea these kids have moved into the area or in what year they will make a show at their attendance area elementary/middle school/high school. The bubble of the bubble is going to burst in just a couple of years if my neighborhood is any indication, and none of this is on the District’s radar.
-StepJ
I attended Lake Washington schools in the 70's with double shifting.
Not fun. But if we plan for it, we can make it work, & if we don't need the plan then all the better.
But I'm not voting for it.
JA has a great Principal, which means the current families will likely stay with JA even if they have to be bussed to the Pinehurst location. But, also very likely low additions of families at the entry level as the school will no longer be in the neighborhood it currently serves. Neighborhood kids attending JA could not walk to school at Pinehurst.
Versus the death of these two programs could the current Pinehurst population and one of the currently displaced schools co-exist? Pinehurst and World School or Pinehurst and Home School?
Just seems like a more reasonable alternative vs. squishing the JA program into a site that cannot accommodate their already existing enrollment and effectively killing both the JA and Pinehurst schools.
-StepJ
It is my understanding that the neighborhood didn't initiate the landmark process at Cedar Park. SPS did.
I remember an article in the Seattle Times about a very cool Paul Thiry home in Normandy Park that was for sale for $1, if they could find a buyer that could move it (by barge, since it was waterfront). I don't think they ever found a buyer. Moving a school built pretty much of solid cement would be interesting, to say the least.
Like your school, many of the new kids at John Rogers were from families who had just moved to the area, and I agree that this type of data is not on the District's radar.
-JR Mom
There is a concept of too much and too little. Shifts double the capacity of a building. The burden of this doubled capacity is shifted from capital costs to structural costs. 6am - noon and noon - 6pm are not anyone's first choices for a middle school schedule.
Then there is the issue of which schools go to the shift schedule. If it is some but not all, there will be increased pressure on the schools with a "traditional/typical" schedule.
So that is why, IMO, shifts are the move you make when you are out of all options. I think we are dangerously close to there but not there yet.
CCA
The phenomenon you describe can be captured in the enrollment projections.
The projections are quite simply
Birth to K ratio to determine K enrollment multiplied by a cohort survival rate for each grade progression.
Both phenomena that you describe would simply show up as larger numbers. For example, historically there has been a huge drop from 5th to 6th grade. However for the last two years of the NSAP, the cohort survival rate was 96%. This does not mean that 96% of the 5th graders moved up. It just means that after the "swirl" of student moving in and out 6th grade was 96% of the size of 5th grade.
That is why there is so much pressure on middle schools.
It is possible for that number to be over !00% as it is for the enrollment jump from 8th to 9th grade. There is always a pop of a few hundred students at that grade.
The challenge is that best practice is to use an average of 5 years of enrollment data. This is mostly because enrollment trends tend to be gradual.
There is kind of a trap here. Follow best practices and your numbers are likely too low. Follow the trend line and your numbers could be too high and you over-build.
First, that's because ALL there is for facilities - problems. Just as many of you feel confused, those of us who look at this in-depth, we are worried AND confused. There is almost no real way for sure to know what to do.
There ARE things that should NOT happen but I don't think the district is listening (see downtown school). I hope voters are listening (see 1240 because again, it will screw things up EVEN more. And, understand that for some people if there are charters, they will NOT be voting for a levy that will give money to charters.)
Second, there have been some comments almost as if Charlie, Eric, Kellie and myself should be accomplishing more. Kids, we are just volunteer activists, doing our best. I wish we had power and the ability to move mountains. We don't but we do have a small bully pulpit to both raise awareness and try to find answers from the larger community.
I don't feel upset when I hear blame and unhappiness (although I think it misdirected and really should go to the district ) but we all understand the frustration.
But, why we are also moving JA in a manner that will severely injure it makes far less sense. I guess I get Kellie's point on comprehensives. If you can fit a whole comprehensive middle school, lock, stock and barrel, in that space, immediately, with virtually no work -- and a comprehensive middle school is, in fact, what you need, well -- there you go! On the other hand, to destroy a thriving, growing, successful K-8 (by amputating a huge part of it) to accomplish that? Geez. We are pretty clearly in Sophie's Choice land here! Who decided which kid lives, and which one dies -- and why?
This iteration of BEX has the same "so now we are finally acknowledging the truth" feeling that I got when they blasted the APP fourth and fifth grades to Lincoln, having suddenly (Eureka!) concluded that they could not, after all, somehow magically house 700 kids at Lowell. It is nice to be talking the "true truth" instead of the "pretend truth" (pish tosh -- a room divider here, a few bookcases there, a music class in the hall, and voila!). But now that we are being more realistic about exactly which kids have literally no place to go to school -- is there no possible solution that preserves all of JA in the long term (even if they had to be nomads for a year or two)? Because I recall the destruction of Cooper, and it still feels horrible.
@Eric B I'm not sure if the BEX Committee has 2012/2013 enrollment information, though from what I can see our school is growing. Last year there were 9 kindergarters who were in a K/1 class. This year we have 21 kindergartners in their own class. That is more than double growth in that grade. With a larger incoming kindergarten class this year, and a lot them have younger siblings, the school population will inevitably grow.
Has a proposal been considered to increase the middle school enrollment at Pinehurst and Jane Addams to eleviate Eckstein's overcapacity? It doesn't make sense to make room for middle schoolers at the cost of overcrowding all the Northeast elementaries with the kids displaced from Pinehurst and Jane Addams. Are there any Northeast elementaries at undercapacity to support the hundreds of displaced students?
It is irresponsible for the District to propose closing Pinehurst that has a proven program for success without even presenting an option for moving the school to a vacant school building in the area, such as Cedar Park. It is sad that the District does not consider the impacts to our kids when they are taken away from a school, teachers, and community they love and the friends they made, for a shell game.
When I checked out nearby assignment elementary schools, they all seemed to be at overcapacity. I chose Pinehurst since it's walking distance from our house, it has a great program, it's a small school with small class sizes, it has a great close-knit community, and they emphasize physical activity more than any other school I visited. They have P.E. everyday and 3 recesses which I think is great to get our kids active and combat childhood obesity. The kids play at the two playgrounds at the school and also a nearby city park, Pinehurst Playfield.
Before the District makes the drastic decision to displace Pinehurst and move Jane Addams as a smaller school, I ask that they seriously consider input from both communities based on facts and not assumptions.
Jane Addams has made several proposals to the District about expanding middle school capacity there. (We've also pushed on the fact that all neighborhood elementary schools are over capacity in the NE, but the district seems to keep ignoring that fact.) You've seen the result of those efforts in this latest proposal. Nice to know the district and FACMAC are both listening - and that FACMAC is so objective (I heard that at least a quarter of FACMAC members have a kid in APP. Would love if someone could verify that).
--Flibbertigibbet
First, I concur with everything KG has said -- but if I were at Pinehurst, I would be worried that a train no one told them about is leaving/has left the station. They need to fluff themselves up really big, and talk really loud, really fast -- if they want to push back on this. I don't like what the District is doing -- but I have seen them eat small schools/schools they don't think are growing/schools whose buildings they want for someone else -- it isn't pretty. It's actually pretty awful.
On FACMAC, I guess if you really want APP parent numbers, have at it, but this is kind of disheartening. Many APP parents have kids in regular programs and/or SPED (I did) and advocate for ALL kids; many with APP kids advocate for all kids anyway -- the way I assume you would if you were on FACMAC -- being APP parents doesn't make them hard-hearted; moreover, the crowding problem in the NE and N is certainly not caused by APP kids (yeah, I guess they are "back north" but ONLY because they got booted out of their school in one of the most diabolically botched failures of capacity planning ever -- and in any case, they are north end kids; don't they belong north as much as anyone?); and finally, once again, it becomes a matter of my kid versus yours, north kids versus south, alt kids versus attendance, sped kids against neurotypicals, etc. etc. etc. We would all do better, and accomplish more, if it was "our kids, ALL our kids -- against a bad combination of scarcity (space and money) and bad management." Because isn't that really the battle? We have a whole city of kids to raise, and we don't have enough money to do it well, and until recently we had dreadfully bad management and a ridiculously bad board (not all, but a majority of 4). When we battle each other, the District just gloms onto the idea that somebody out there is "winning" and "happy," tells themselves with a shrug that you can't please everybody, and moves on to the next ham-handed decision. This is how many of the bad NSAP decisions were made.
If Kellie is right -- if this is a 2 billion dollar problem with a six hundred million dollar solution -- we all lose - because we can't fix a 2 billion dollar capacity/capital improvement problem with 6 hundred million. They are all our kids, and a whole bunch of them will lose -- so we ALL lose. The best we can do is try to figure out how to minimize the losses. That means -- NO bad decisions. NO decisions that are political pandering, or based on flat out stupid wrong data (assuming better data is available -- yes, even from (gasp) parents) that will have to be undone at great monetary cost. I am struggling to see how destroying Pinehurst AND JA (for all intents and purposes) could possibly be the "least bad" solution, though I am not sure what solution is better. But how does counting the number of parents on FACMAC with APP kids help, even a tiny bit?
I'm also uncomfortable with the suggestion that FACMAC members would be biased because of their kids' school situation. Sure, we advocate for our kids when that's our job, but when we're tapped to advocate for ALL kids in SPS, I trust my fellow parents to do the best, unbiased job they can.
As long as JA can fill the allotted middle school seats its not an issue whether its an option school or not. Its taking pressure off of the quadrant as a whole. The data from this year's 6th grade cohort seems to support that this is perfectly possible.
Ben
The District doesn't seem to have a plan for accommodating the K-5 kids who would decide not to follow Jane Addams to Pinehurst, or who wouldn't chose JA is future years. The neighborhood elementaries around JA are full.
http://district.seattleschools.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/1583136/File/Departmental%20Content/communications/strategic%20plan/SPS_Strategic_Plan_2008.pdf
"Enrollment has hovered
around 45,000 students during the last decade, although SPS’ demographers predict a
gradual decline over the next several years (due to a declining number of school-age
children in the city as a whole, not to a decrease in the District’s market share). Declining
enrollment led to school closures in the 1980s and in 2006."
-ABC
Ah! What a gem! There's Goodloe-Johnson making things up to suit her prepackaged, Ed Reform "Strategic Plan"! Goes to show what those from out of town (and have indicated no interest in getting to know our city), can really fudge things up - to put it mildly.
Now, I believe Mr. Banda is no MGJ (PTL!) He is stuck between a rock (DeBell/LEV/A4E and the downtownies) and a hard place (the proverbial great unwashed). His personal history is one I can relate to, so I still hold out hope he will grow those cajones and do the right thing.
I'm also surprised that I don't see mentioned that the current Kindergarten class at Pinehurst is DOUBLE what it was last year.
I think it is a sick irony that two schools that are NOT contributing to the overcrowding of the Eckstein middle school are paying the price when we would be happy to just absorb some of the crowd. Personally I chose Pinehurst BECAUSE of the K-8 and at the time I lived near it. Now I'm there for community and friends that our family has made with people at the school.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the homeschooling option...that is what I would be tempted to do if they displace us like they did Summit.
My family came from the South end to the North end recently and have spoken to the board before over the district changes (we were <1m from a school yet assigned to another & had to bus)...guess it's time to practice my loud voice.